Best Travel Credit Cards

A first class ticket to Bali and 3 nights stay at the Four Seasons are no longer out of reach. With these top rated travel cards you can travel like royalty.

Travel Rewards Cards are an incredible way to make expensive overseas travel a reality for those of us that aren’t driving Range Rovers or spending our days jetting around in our private planes. I’ve listed my top 4 favorite travel cards for the average Jane. I didn’t include any cards with a yearly fee above $150 although there are cards with fees upwards of $500 per year that get you perks like lounge access and $200 in airline fee credits.

Chase Sapphire Reserve By far, this is the number one card on my list. The initial bonus is 100,000 miles and is basically unheard of. Although the yearly fee is $450, you’ll get $300 of that back from any travel purchase (including uber). So if you plan to travel at all the fee is more like $150. Dining purchases are worth 3 miles per dollar and the miles are worth 50% more than most programs. Apply now – the 100k mile offer won’t last long! (still available in Chase branch stores through March 2017)

The BarclayCard Arrival Plus Elite MasterCard. I got this card last year and was able to cover around $700 of my honeymoon trip with these rewards alone. Initially you get 40,000 bonus miles when you spend $3k or more in the first three months which is good for ANY charge relating to travel (EVEN Uber) and is worth $400. From there, you get 2 miles per dollar spent which is unheard of and 5% of your miles back when you redeem your miles.

Capitol One Venture Card. Also a wonderful card and basically identical to how the BarclayCard works. The only difference is a slightly lower yearly fee. They also don’t have the 5% miles back feature, so really it’s a wash.

Chase Sapphire Preferred. This one gets you 50,000 bonus miles after spending $4k in 3 months. Which is $625 towards hotel and air travel ($125 less than CapitalOne or BarclayCard). You earn 2 miles per dollar spent on dining, gas stations and grocery stores, 3 miles on travel purchases and 1 mil on everything else. Annual fee of $95.

There are a few other hotel rewards cards that I could add, but overall I believe these four cards get you the most bang for your buck without being married to any one airline or hotel chain. With the first two credit cards, I was able to cover a large portion of the past two European trips that I went on.